


Fallen Star

by Valkyrie (Syvenne)



Category: Star Trek
Genre: M/M, Star Trek AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-01
Updated: 2013-10-01
Packaged: 2017-12-28 03:19:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/987037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syvenne/pseuds/Valkyrie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two possibilities exist:</p><p>Either we are alone in the Universe…</p><p>…or we are not.</p><p>Both are equally terrifying.</p><p>~Arthur C. Clarke</p><p>Spock crash-lands in the ocean near San Francisco, bruised, battered and broken on a foreign planet with no help in sight...</p><p>A planet that was as yet unaware of alien life.</p><p>Until now.</p><p>Set in the modern era, with a few changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Impact

Walls pressing, winds buffeting, roaring heat encompassing the escape pod.

The ship had been destroyed, the cockpit sealed and ejected by the automatic systems.

Empty space gaving way to the aerated atmosphere below, compressed air heating the hull, scorching, melting, never meant for this maltreatment.

Hundreds of kilometres above the planet’s surface, plummeting without control - the pod’s stabilisers had ripped off as soon as they deployed, so great was its velocity.  The ground was steadily approaching, the view of continents and oceans giving way to a solid mass of blue water, land barely visible in the distance, the shore of some bustling alien metropolis.

So fast, too fast, little chance of survival… 4.6% chance of survival, to be exact.

The pod was vibrating violently, shaking me around in my harness as the pod slowed in the denser atmosphere, reaching terminal velocity, any loose objects coming loose, rattling around inside the hull, missing me by millimetres, some coming into forceful contact with my arms, legs, abdomen, the helmet my only barrier between myself and severe head trauma.

Down, down, down… tens of kilometres above the surface now, the altimeter ticking down too fast to read, the sight beyond the scorched viewscreen filled with the blue of the planet’s ocean - chances of survival increased to 47.8% if I achieve a water landing.

Down, down, down, a mere thousand metres high now, and steadily dropping… I wonder if the native population has sighted me, or merely mistaken me for one of their primitive rockets.  I was never meant to be here.  I was never meant to stray from orbit, yet down I go, so close now, the water rushing up to meet me--

Impact.  The roaring stopped, leaving me deaf to any sounds around me, the light dimming to near darkness, only revealing streams of bubbles rushing past the viewscreen as the heated hull boiled the water around it.

I had been thrown forward in my harness, bruising my abdomen.  I tentatively pressed down in key areas, assessing the damage, wincing slightly as I connected with several broken ribs.  Five broken ribs.  Fractured tibia.  Sprained vertebrae.  Heavy bruising throughout the rest of my body.

I am… lucky to be alive.

No, nonsense.  My chances of survival were just under half.  It was merely a matter of probability.

The pod resurfaced, bobbing about in the waves, the buoyancy of the air inside providing an overall lower density than the surrounding water, lifting me up.

My hearing was returning now, adjusting to the silence… almost silence.  I strained my hearing, attempting to identify the whirring noise I could hear… propellers?  Primitive motors?

Suddenly, I felt cold, tendrils of ice solidifying inside my chest.  Fear.  I quickly stamped down on the emotion, yet it was no use.  The natives were going to find me, find my ship.  It was too early for First Contact, this species wasn’t ready, they did not even know that alien life existed…  And now they were going to find out, in spectacular form.  They would have a real, live alien on their hands.  And this species was not renowned for its gentle nature.

I was going to die.

I did not want to die.

I had to escape.

I undid the harness, rummaging about in the pod for the survival kit - a water-proof backpack that contained nondescript clothing, nourishment, and the basic technology required to send out a distress signal.  I turned to pull the pack over my shoulders, catching sight of something that glinted behind it.  My mother’s “birthday present” to me.  She had known I was coming to survey this planet, that I would be away during the time where I would be recorded as one year older.  She had a special connection to this place.

I quickly packed the shiny box in the survival kit, activating the rebreather in my helmet, and preparing to disengage the hatch, hitting the self-destruct button as I stood above the exit.

One…

Two…

Three.

I closed my eyes, but nothing could have prepared me for the icy cold rush of water that hit me, quickly filling up the pod and causing it to sink.  I was a creature of the desert, never meant to be submerged.  Yet desperate times call for desperate measures. 

A panel on the wall flashed red, counting down in my native script - 20… 19… 18… 17…

I had to move away, fast.  My armour would protect me from the shockwave, deadly as it would be under the water, but the further away I could swim, the higher my chances of survival.

Increasing by 17% for every ten metres I could swim away.

I kicked off from the hull, pulling myself through the water as fast as I could, reaching out and kicking forward with all the force I could muster in my broken, battered state.  My body screamed out in pain, but I shut it off, boxing away the pain just as I did my emotions.

3…

2…

1…

Impact.

The fiery shockwave lit up the water before it was extinguished, the shockwave pushing out, catching me, pushing me along with it for another hundred metres.  It hurt, every limb and organ telling me to stop this abuse, and yet… I was still alive.

All I wanted to do was get out of this water, crawl onto dry land and sleep, but I knew I couldn’t surface yet.  My ship was obliterated now, completely gone, and now I had to make myself scarce also, lest they capture me.

I drifted in the water for a time, my internal chronometer not functioning at its optimal efficiency.  I could not tell if minutes had passed, or whole hours, yet I knew I had to move.

My exosuit microprocessors were still functional, the screens set into the armoured suit cracked and damaged, yet still able to give me the information I required.

I turned in the water until I was facing the nearest land mass, one kilometre away.  So close to civilisation, there was no doubt that the natives would have seen my ship fall and enter the water, would have observed the subsequent explosion.

I had to remain undetected.

Slowly, I swum towards the mainland, tired, sore and dehydrated, yet… alive.


	2. Landfall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I DON'T OWN THESE CHARACTERS
> 
> I DO OWN THAT THERE BIOSUIT
> 
> IT'S THE ONLY THING I CAN CLAIM OWNERSHIP TO

**Landfall**

The sun had set by the time I washed ashore, too exhausted to fight the waves any longer.  I was lifted up by the water, shifted forward, dumped upon the sand, still grateful for my vacuum-tight suit.

On my stomach, I could see nothing.  I forced myself to roll over, coughing as one of my fractured ribs nudged a lung.  I had come so close to attaining far more serious injuries, but as of yet, I suffered from nothing life-threatening… as long as I avoided further exertion, and kept myself sealed off from the foreign contagions of this planet.

Perhaps I was not as “lucky” as I had first hoped.

My arm barely responded to my commands as I tried to lift it into view, feeling many times its normal weight.  Was the gravity stronger here?  No, of course not; the gravity on this planet was significantly less than that of my homeworld.  I had been left weakened by the crash and the subsequent swim, left almost helpless upon some alien beach far from home with no aid in sight.

“Com… computer,” I stuttered out, experiencing difficulty in forming the words, “Initialise medical protocol 012.”

 _< Medical Protocol 012 initialised>_ came the automated reply, and immediately I began to feel a difference.  The suit was synchronised with my biological functions, able to provide field treatment where necessary.  My discomfort was soothed as the analgesics threaded their way through my bloodstream, the suit tightening and solidifying around my abdomen and damaged limbs, forming makeshift casts and splints to hold the fractured bone together.  It was a temporary solution, meant to last only until I could find a safe location to perform a healing trance.

The medical protocol detected the lack of available energy in my muscles, automatically beginning to supply my body with enough adrenaline to keep me going, to get me away from this place.  I wasn’t safe yet.  I had to keep moving.

Eventually, I was able to haul myself upright, able to take stock of my surroundings.  The beach stretched on for miles, and there was no civilisation in sight - only the faint glow of light pollution from a city some way away.  There was a full moon high in the sky, a sight unfamiliar to me - my planet had no moons, only a sister planet close enough to be easily viewed on a clear night.  I cast my mind back to my study of this planet’s astronomy; if the moon was full, then midnight would be marked as it reaches its zenith.  Not only had I been carried a long way from my splashdown site by the current, I had also been travelling far longer than I had realised.  That might not even be the same city over the horizon; it might be one some long distance north or south of my original location.

I examined the stars above me, attempting to determine my location.  By the positions of their constellations - pictures imagined from a simplistic dot-to-dot reference frame by the apparent arrangement of the stars in relation to eachother - I was able to determine that I was in the planet’s Northern Hemisphere.  The ambient temperature suggested a latitude between thirty and forty degrees north.

Of course, I could have used my suit’s inbuilt global positioning system to determine my location precisely.  But I had always found the challenge of working things out for myself, without any computer aid, highly stimulating.  It was reassuring to note that despite my current predicament, my usual personality traits and cognitive functions remained unaltered.  Such an observation decreased the likelihood of a diagnosis of any stress-related mental disorders arising from my catastrophically near-death experience.

I lifted myself unsteadily to my feet, almost falling back down, my legs only just supporting me.  It would be impossible to travel quickly like this.  I could only hope that the odds were in my favour, that I would remain undetected.

Though today seemed to be a day for defying the odds.

The helmet felt suffocating all of a sudden.  I could still breathe normally, of course, but I felt the very sudden urge to have it off, to feel the alien breeze flow past my bare skin.  The latches came undone with an easy efficiency, the helmet coming away in my hands as I took my first unfiltered breath of this new world’s air.

The air was thick and cold compared to that of my homeworld, much more heavily oxygenated, and at a far lower temperature, mostly due to the proximity of such a large body of water.  Also due to the water was the salty tang to the air, something completely new and unique to me.  I could not find the will to move, the hand holding my helmet dropping to my side, tilting my head back and closing my eyes in an emotional display that I never would have considered back home. 

But I wasn’t at home, was I?

I allowed the faintest of smiles to tug at my lips, content in the peace of the cool ocean breeze, the constant rushing of waves washing in and out, the wind rustling the leaves of the nearby flora.  My first true, first-hand experience of my mother’s home planet was completely… tranquil.

I heard a faint whisper of another sound off in the distance, something that did not quite mesh with the ambient hum of nature.  I tilted my head slightly, eyes still closed, in an attempt to triangulate the sound, my scientist’s mind already at work, analysing the pitch and volume and resonance of the noise.  It grew slowly louder, as if its source were moving closer, coalescing into a kind of… whirring.

My eyes snapped open again in a moment of panic, before the sound grew clearer again (as if moving around an obstruction?), the noise quite clearly not that of a helicopter or boat.  No… it sounded like a small motor vehicle, the kind that the native population preferred to use as their main means of transport.  This species was still in the stage of using fossil fuels as their main energy source, a non-renewable and ultimately limited resource that was slowly poisoning their planet.

It was only now that I realised that I was standing on the edge of a road that wound close by the shoreline, a winding bitumen trail that curved with the coast, leading onwards to the glow of civilisation over the horizon.

I couldn’t move, couldn’t run and hide in this state - I was standing out in the open, alien biosuit in full view, helmet off, pointed ears and slanted brows lit up by the moonlight.

As the vehicle rounded the last corner, catching me in the beams of light coming from its headlamps, I stood frozen, assessing all available options.  Would the car stop?  Would the driver attempt to communicate with me?  What then?  Would I have to risk those who would capture me being informed, or would I be forced to prevent this individual from recounting this experience?

The car slowed to a stop beside me, and my heart rate accelerated beyond its normal resting pace, regardless of what control I attempted to exert over it.  The driver’s side window scrolled down, revealing a human youth, with honey-toned skin, blonde hair that stood up in tufts, and eyes of a piercing azure.  Those eyes roamed over my body, taking in the detail of the suit, my straight-cut hair, my slanted eyebrows, my pointed ears, a slow grin stretching across his face,

“Howdy stranger!  Welcome to Planet Earth!”


End file.
